My Brother's Keeper
by SimplyElymas
Summary: A series of one hundred word drabbles, featuring the less glamorous but more talented Holmes brother, Mycroft. There will eventually be one hundred of these, as it's written for the Story 100 comm on LJ.
1. Beginnings

It was a very nice day, hinted Mycroft's father, to begin a long book. The ample young man stretched out gratefully on one of the porch chairs, _Pilgrim's Progress _in hand.

A small sharp face poked out of the overlooking window. Soon a slight boy surreptitiously followed it.

"You should use the door," said Mycroft.

His brother's eyes widened. "How'd you know I was here?"

"You're as loud as an ox."

"I was not either!"

Mycroft turned to him. "I thought I'd explained the art of deduction. . ."

"You mean you can teach me?"

"Not really."

"Try," said Sherlock, and Mycroft began.


	2. Risk

"Don't jump!" Mycroft cried to his brother. Ignoring him, Sherlock pushed off from the cliff on wiry, white legs. The callused soles of his feet were flung for an instant into the air, but flipped quickly out of sight. The more portly boy dashed to the edge horrified, but his brother was safe in the sea below, laughing loudly, his small, birdlike head thrown back.

"Come on!" the smaller one called. "It's something to write home about!"

Mycroft shook his head.

"Live a little, Mycroft!"

The older boy thrust his hands into his pockets and started the walk back home.


	3. Middles

"I still don't understand it," said he.

"You will, in time," I replied.

"For God's sake, Mycroft, you're not a yogi."

"And you're not an idiot." I sneered. "Are you?"

He glared indignantly. "All I know is that it's all Greek to me. Say it again, would you?"

"What is born at the same time as the world, destined to live as long as the world, but never five weeks old?"

"I don't see how stupid riddles are going to teach me anything."

"When you're in the middle of something," said I, "you can never see out the other end."


	4. Endings

Set during the Hiatus.

-------------------------

Dear Sherlock,

Does not entertain me as much as you expected to know that you are presently calling yourself Mycroft Watson. Is as good a name as any other, and better than most, but you need to forget your charade. Money is running out. You need to come back. Will keep this short as am not sure you can pay for postage and do not wish for you to feel you must write a long response.

How long do you intend to counterfeit to be someone you are not?

Come home.

Mycroft

Dear Mycroft,

Am coming home.

Send money.

Sherlock


	5. Broken

Mother fretted. Father said nothing. My tutors seemed vaguely pleased that I would be kept inside.

I never told Mycroft, but it was his fault.

"You can't have," he retorted, when I mentioned I had climbed the cliffs near our summmer house.

"I just did," I said, still sweating a little – I had run home to tell him of my victory.

"Do it again," he said, "and this time write your name at the top. Then I'll believe you."

I was fourteen when I broke my ankle. Mycroft looked at me derisively and said, "Well, what did you expect?"


	6. Family

I glanced out the French window to see my father in animated conversation with a lady.

" –so, it was James after all!"

She laughed. I emerged a little nervously, catching my father's eye. He beckoned me out. "Miss Gerald? My son, Mycroft."

"Oh, is this Mycroft?" she replied, surprised. "I assumed that was the young gentleman coming up the path."

I looked up. It was Sherlock hobbling along. His broken ankle gave him an odd shambling gait. He might have been a beggar.

"No," said my father, a cloud crossing over his face. "That is Sherlock. My other son."


	7. Breakfast

Mycroft was a naturally early riser. It was not that he was a vigorous young man. He was anything but. It simply seemed that Mycroft's body liked to put itself to bed as early as possible, and then to wake likewise.

"Good morning, Mycroft," said his father.

"Good morning, sir."

"Good morning, Sherlock."

"Mmmwhat?" Sherlock ran one thin hand through his mussed hair. "Oh. Good morning, sir, I'm sure." The sleeve of his dressing gown trailed in the butter dish.

Mr. Holmes tightened his grip on the tablecloth. Mycroft's mother whimpered. Mycroft ducked his head down and attacked his eggs.


	8. Lunch

"Aren't you hungry?"

"Not remotely."

"But it is lunch time."

Sherlock Holmes looked at his brother with a vague whimsical air. "I don't see why that means so much."

Mycroft pursed his lips. "Some of us need three meals a day to remain functional."

"And I am not one of them."

The two glared hotly at each other for a moment before Mycroft sighed, grabbed a linen napkin from the lunch table, wrapped his brother's helping of casserole in it, and forcibly shoved it into Sherlock's coat pocket.

"If you starve yourself," said Mycroft, "I refuse to be held responsible."


	9. Villian

"You are determined in your course of action?"

"Yes."

"You realize you may not come out alive?"

"My chances are slim, I know. My opponent is formidable."

"Yes. That he is." Mycroft took a pinch of snuff and stared out of the window. The atmosphere of the Visitor's Room was so thick and tense he could have cut it with a knife. "So you're going to go through with this, then?"

"Naturally."

"I cannot in good conscience wish you good luck, I'm afraid. I'm decidedly with the other side."

"I quite understand," replied Professor James Moriarty. "Family matters. I know."


	10. Snow

It was too hot.

"Good Lord," whined Sherlock unbecomingly, "this temperature is simply unpatriotic."

Mycroft glared at his brother over the Bunsen burner. "And what do you want me to do about it?"

"I don't know," the boy retorted, rolling over on the settee. "Create snow, I suppose."

Mycroft smirked.

"Could we do that?" Sherlock rose, suddenly impish.

"I don't know," Mycroft said, grinning in spite of himself. "I've never tried." Sherlock reached for the burner.

To any boy attempting to create snow with a chemistry set, here is Mycroft Holmes's advice:

"Do not burn off your younger brother's eyebrows."


	11. Triumph

Mycroft tossed down his coat on his brother's lap. "All right, Cain, lesson of the day. Perhaps you'll get it right this time. Where've I been?"

Sherlock glanced, uncaring, at the coat before going back to his book. "Tailor?" he observed uncertainly.

An enormous smile began to spread itself across the older brother's face. "Indeed," Mycroft replied.

"Really?" The younger boy dropped Plato's Dialogues. "Really?"

"I knew you'd get it someday."

They didn't speak of it again, not even once, but at the end of the day Sherlock found copies of the penny dreadfuls he adored left on his pillow.


End file.
